How Iron Lady was protected by ‘cocoon’ of friends
Latest release of private papers reveal a backstage spat and a PM not quite at home with popular music
IT WAS a famous landslide, yet behind the scenes there had been, as Conservative Central Office had called it, a wobble.
Margaret Thatcher was returned in 1987 for a third term at Downing Street with a majority of 102 – not quite the whitewash of four years earlier, but a convincing thumping nonetheless.
But in the aftermath of the campaign, Mrs Thatcher was urged by one of her most senior advisors “not to put herself through it again”.
The latest release of Lady Thatcher’s private papers this morning sheds new light on the backstage drama that threatened to derail the Tory campaign in the face of an increasingly marketing-savvy Labour opposition.
Charles, Powell, her private secretary for foreign affairs, penned a personal letter to the Prime Minister, in which he described the level of abuse ahead of the vote as “unbelievable”, and told her: “It’s not right that you should be subjected to a further round like this time.”
The letter, signed “with affection and respect” by Powell and his wife, Carla, has been published in full for the first time today by the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust.
Its author, now Lord Powell, was shown it again ahead of its reappearance, and said he had been “distressed” by the nature of the election and had sought to discourage the Prime Minister “from any inclination to go ‘on and on’”.
He had written: “If ever a party and a country were carried to success on the shoulders of one person, it has been over this last eight years, and the election was the reward.
“All the same I hope that you will not put yourself through it again. The level of personal abuse thrown at you during the campaign was unbelievable and must take some toll, however stoic you are outwardly.”
Historian Chris Collins, who helped write the former Prime Minister’s memoirs, said those who worked with her felt “very protective”.
He said: “It is no accident that Carla Powell signs this as well. This is actually a letter from friends. And they were friends.”
He added: “I did work for her, and I knew that atmosphere. We were very protective. She wanted that, she needed that cocoon.
“The world was out to get her in many ways. It wasn’t a neurotic paranoid assumption that people wanted to bring her down.”